Earlier, >It has been said not all SuperMacs will take OS X. Here's my tale of woe. >The install of Jaguar with XpostFacto on my 2nd S900 was rough and >the initial startup screen was a checkerboard pattern. This >disappeared in later boots. There were some stability issues and the >more I tinkered, the worse it got. This was on a 40 GB IBM HD. In >short, all the crashes led to losing a 2 GB WD OEM HD, an innocent >bystander. > >I decided to accept defeat and start all over. Reformated first and >I was able to boot with the OS 9.1 install CD and partition the IBM >40 GB HD according to method. When I tried to install the minimal OS >9.1, the S900 locked up. Reboot, zap pram, do a CUDA, install the >Sonnet G4 pram floppy and try the OS 9.1 install CD again. Locks up >again. I tried the pull all ram, zap pram and put all ram back. >Locks up again but not always at the same spot. > >So I disconnect everything, push CUDA and take out battery and all >cards overnight. Put in battery, push CUDA. After all this, the OS >9.1 CD will sometimes get half way started and then the screen >freezes. Zap pram, push CUDA (10-30 sec.) and still the OS 9.1 >install disk will not load! Most of the time, the CD will freeze at >the smiling Mac icon or at the Mac OS 9.1 splash screen and only >rarely gets half loaded (which is the way I feel now). >snip >Eric
Fixed! Took the drive away from the S900 that was stuck and hooked up to my other working S900. Installed the OS 9.1 on the drive and then put it back in the stuck S900. It worked! What was the problem? Beats the **** out of me. Or you can't know everything. Moral of the story? If you are going to play with getting OS X on an S900, it helps to have another working S900 around to test cables, ram, etc. otherwise you suffer if OS X fails. The other observation is that when OS X gets installed on an S900, everything must be in harmony. If not, OS X will go south taking your whole system (OS 9.1 too) down to the point where nothing works. You are not safe even installing X on a separate disk in an S900 as once OS X goes by by, the whole machine goes to a black hole. If you are faint of heart, don't like taking the guts out of an S900 and are not too keen on getting all the bits and pieces of SW to pull this install off, then stay with OS 9.1. But when you see Jaguar installing on an S900 right before your eyes, you're hooked. Just make sure you have a reliable up to date backup of your goodies before you go down this path. The lucky get by with no problems from everything being compatible. But like Will said, check your ram 'cause different types won't work (I had all EDO). Neither will some ATA boards. Sonnet has a bunch of drivers for their cards to work with OS X. Check your cables and disconnect any important extra drives before you start. The ideal situation is to have a Mac running Jaguar. Then you'll know what this cat looks like. Eric -- Unsupported OS X is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Unsupported OS X list info <http://lowendmac.com/lists/unsupported.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:UnsupportedOSX@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:UnsupportedOSX-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:UnsupportedOSX-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lemlists.com> Archive <http://www.mail-archive.com/unsupportedosx%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
